Listen to Your Angry

“I had a GREAT class last night!” That’s what I told my friend Paul, a transformational life coach the kind of night I just had at Jiujitsu class. As I proceeded to break down the technique and relive this experience with him, it raised a wonderful discussion on the topic of anger and violence; and I started to realize how rare it is that I get to share my thoughts and feelings about anger. It made me wonder how many of us don’t get the opportunity to reflect and gather our thoughts on our anger too.

Learned Behavior

How we were taught to view anger will affect our entire lives. For some anger might have been something they saw all the time in their households or in the neighborhoods they lived in. I grew up believing that anger was something bad, something we should try to avoid if we can. That’s probably why I never enjoyed being around anger whenever it appeared and why whenever I felt angry I didn’t know what to do with it. I noticed people in my family get angry most of the time when this happened I felt uncomfortable. Shouting, raised volume, aggressive behavior. Whether it was my parents, siblings, or someone else this what I remember and concluding walking or stomping after an argument parting ways in opposite directions.

I didn’t want to deal with this type of situation, so instead of getting upset, angry, or exploding, I was taught to keep it silent and ignore it if I had to. Because if anger was bad for you, why would you want it? I did this even if I felt inside something in me wasn’t sitting right. I did this for as long as I could. However, like all things in life, eventually, when we try to avoid certain things, they seem to find a way to show up.

Anger as an Emotion

I’ll admit it, I know I have anger issues that I’ve been working on too. Like anyone else I probably didn’t even know it was an issue until my most recent years. I’m not sure I can pinpoint what level or scale it exists, but reflecting on my past and even the present times, I have had moments where I burst out in ways I didn’t like or felt comfortable with. I know now that this was because I didn’t know how to express them, and the difference between expressing in healthy or unhealthy ways.?

The thing is no one ever mentioned to me that anger was an emotion. Like being happy, sad, confused, shocked, scared...but why don’t we treat it the same? Why was it that of all the emotions, anger is the one that seems the most difficult to process and manage? Why is it that anger is the one that gets associated with negativity and danger? DANGER! Why does anger seem to be the one emotion that gets a bad rep??

Like all of our other emotions, it’s not something we can just ignore or get rid of. If we are talking about our mental health, there will be a time when expressing our anger can be beneficial to us. Yes, anger can be beneficial.?

Insert FLASHBACK.

When I was in Kindergarten I got bullied and didn’t know the seriousness of it. Kids can be mean. I got made fun of for being Asian. I was angry, but I wasn’t exactly sure why. I didn’t like getting picked on and wanted to be left alone or at the least treated like all the other kids, I was angry, but?

I didn't know what I should do with this feeling. So I did what I thought I was supposed to, based on what I was taught, I kept it to myself. I didn’t tell anyone about it. I kept my hurt inside.?

The closest thing to a fight I ever encountered was when I was young and saw my best friend at the time get jumped. Literally another kid jumped on his head! As I reflect on this memory, I still have no clue how that happened. Physically, how did my friend’s head withstand another kid sitting on him?

Then some years later, that same friend while he and I were out at a baseball field minding our own business tossing the ball around, out of nowhere a car pulled up and another young person got out and walked straight up to my friend and punched him in the head! Again!!!

Those kids did get caught by the cops, but I’m not sure what happened after that. As for the other kids who jumped on my buddy's head, we knew them from the neighborhood, and they apologized soon after. I remember being angry during both incidents, but I didn’t know what to do with what I was feeling at the time.?

“I had to learn that I COULD go there,?then I had to learn HOW to go there.”

Practice and Processing Anger?

When I first began my training with Orpheus, my martial arts, boxing coach, best friend, and mentor, there were times he said to me, “You’re too nice!” I felt a little ashamed hearing this because I thought being nice meant I was weak. That wasn’t the case though. He reminded me that it was something special. “There are a lot of people who aren’t nice.”

Still, he had a point he was making to me. If I was going to do this training, the way he was showing me, I would need to tap into a side of me that perhaps I never knew existed in me. I would have to allow myself to tap into the more primal side of me. The side of me ever since I was a young boy I did everything I could to avoid. I had to go to places where I could actually hurt someone. Where I could actually cause some amount of destruction. I had to face feelings when they showed up and process them in the moment I was having them.

Was I scared? Hell yeah. Not only that but I was scared of what this meant. Having to choose whether or not I wanted to explore this unknown side of me. Luckily, I had a good mentor, a best friend, someone who didn’t have to hold my hand, but I knew would be there every time I wanted to run, every time I wanted to give up, and more importantly, was right there to lend his hand when I wanted to pick myself up (off the ground.)?

I remember a couple of very specific moments when I working on some drill, exercise, or sparring ( a form of training common to many combat sports. essentially relatively 'free-form' fighting, with enough rules, customs, or agreements to minimize injuries.) As we engaged in our ‘fight-agreement’ we exchanged punches and moved around each other, without even noticing my anger came out. When I got hit, I wanted nothing but to hit him back. When I got clocked with a certain amount of force, I wanted to “get him back” with one of my own. In other words, I took it personally.

Not just once but it took a few times before it sunk in. Orpheus would say to me, “You’re such a pugilist or you’re headhunting.” You see I didn’t know but he absolutely did, but I was expressing my anger, my angst, my frustration during my fight. I did not know about what was happening in my body, mind, or soul. I was going off only what I had learned and reacting to what I was feeling. I had no process, no practice of expressing myself in other ways. In time, I would learn that a skilled fighter can remain calm even in chaos.?

Emotional Intelligence

Many of us at a very young age face feelings of anger but don’t have a safe or healthy way of expressing it. Many, are forced to suppress it or only mimic what they see in others, which might be reacting to a situation and expressing it through the use of violence or causing harm. I learned how to take a hit, and how I could give a hit. I learned how I could feel this capability to cause much damage and destruction, but instead of falling ill to its destructive nature, I could be empowered by it and choose not to hurt. This is power. This is confidence. This is a skill. This is true self-mastery. Where self-awareness meets all the hard work, pain, and heartache you’ve experienced, to generate good in this world. To not let the ego own you.

I have been having more conversations with those who have faced anger, violence, combat, and life and death daily. They remind me time after time, this is not something they need to tap into at all. They know it’s there, they are well aware of their capabilities to do and cause harm if and when needed, but they hope and wish they won’t have to. More specifically they are hoping for the sake of whoever chooses to want to mess with them. Where I have had to learn how to tap into my rage, that part of me that can do this. For them, they are trying their best to not have to go there. I have been fully enriched by these exchanges in our conversations and perspectives. It takes confidence to allow your body (and mind) to let go.

I remember Orpheus used to say to me, “Let your body do what it’s trained to do.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant by this, but some years later, it’s making more sense. When you punch, when you kick, when grab, pull, whatever you do, if you do it half-a$$ or half-anything, you won’t know what it means to let go, you will still be holding onto something. In the film Fight Club, there is a scene where Tyler Durden tells the Jack character, “It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.” It takes practice but with time and effort, you will notice the difference.?

Anger is part of being human. It is an emotion like sadness, excitement, nervousness, etc. Why don’t we treat it with the same respect then? Why are we taught to fear our anger? What if we were taught at a young age or start now that anger can be effective and efficient, with the right training? We need ways to practice feeling our anger…and working through the emotion. How can we learn to feel our anger, and let it pass in healthier ways, so we can let it go and not suppress or run from it??

I'm learning now in my forties, how I can process my anger, in addition to all the other emotions I have. How do I navigate how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, and how I will act when it occurs. I understand it is and will always be an ongoing practice, but one I'm willing to continue doing if it means living life healthier, happier, not just for me, but for all those I will encounter from this day and on.

“You're not training for the specific scenario that you're looking at right now, you're training to tackle the unknown later on.” - Rory Miller's “Meditations of Violence”